


head first (and no regrets)

by alotofthingsdifferent



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Small Town, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-01
Updated: 2015-10-01
Packaged: 2018-04-22 15:52:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4841393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alotofthingsdifferent/pseuds/alotofthingsdifferent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What happened?” Zach asks, and Ryan sucks a breath in through his teeth when Zach unwraps his hand and turns it over.</p><p>“Dash got loose,” he explains. “Caught my hand on the barbed wire bringing him back in. It was dark, I wasn’t really paying attention-- it was stupid.”</p><p>[A story about stitches, kitchen sinks, and coming home.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	head first (and no regrets)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bestliars](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bestliars/gifts).



> I owe an endless debt of gratitude to a lot of people for helping me make this story happen, but this fic is a gift, so I'm not going to list them all here. You know who you are, and I love you all. (You especially, Jay. THANK YOU.)
> 
> bestliars wanted Ryan/Zach, domesticity, fluffiness, and the two of them making decisions about their relationship. Oh! And the fact that they were rivals at first and then became friends. This is what I came up with. I hope you enjoy it!

Zach leans back in his chair and blows out a breath, knuckling the grit from his eyes. His desk is covered in paperwork, and he’s amazed at how much red tape he’s had to go through just to make sure his patients’ insurance covers their treatment. 

It wasn’t like this back in New York. They had a whole department working on insurance claims, a behind-the-scenes cog in the machine that Zach never had to see. He arches his back and lifts his arms above his head in a long stretch, fighting a yawn. It’s just past ten, if the old cuckoo clock squawking loudly on the wall is right, and he pinches the bridge of his nose, pushing back from his desk to stand up.

He trails his fingers along the dusty edges of the bookshelf his dad built all those years ago, when this office was his and his was the medical license hanging proudly on the wall, framed in gold. Zach looks over his shoulder at the box of things he still hasn’t unpacked. His own diploma is balanced on top, his name scrawled in calligraphy under _The John Hopkins School of Medicine_. He’s been back nearly two weeks, and he still can’t bring himself to hang it on the wall. 

Coming back here after ten years away wasn’t exactly what he envisioned for himself at twenty eight. He’d worked his ass off to get into med school, and worked even harder to find a decent job when he graduated. New York was a far cry from Green Valley, but he fit in there, and when he met Sam, everything seemed to fall into place. Young love was a great thing, and for a while, Zach thought he had it all. A great job, a sprawling condo with an amazing view of the New York skyline, and a woman who could make his toes curl just by saying his name. 

But as Zach had come to learn, things aren’t always what they seem, and there’s a diamond ring buried somewhere in his underwear drawer to prove it. 

He’s startled from his thoughts by a loud knock on the door, and he freezes for a moment when he sees a large figure looming in the shadows just outside. He glances at his watch.

“Who is it?” He might be in the middle of nowhere, but the world has changed in ten years, and he lived in New York long enough to know that trust is earned, not given.

“Ryan. Uh, Ryan Suter,” comes the reply, and then, “I cut my hand, could you-- look, I’m dripping blood everywhere, can you please--”

Zach opens the door before he can finish. “Come in,” he says, stepping aside as Ryan makes his way in. He’s holding his hand out in front of him, a bloodstained cloth wrapped around it, and Zach doesn’t have time for a proper reaction to seeing _Ryan Suter_ for the first time in ten years. 

“Sorry,” Ryan mumbles. “I know it’s late, but the light was on, and I didn’t think I should wait until morning.”

“What happened?” Zach asks, and Ryan sucks a breath in through his teeth when Zach unwraps his hand and turns it over.

“Dash got loose,” he explains. “Caught my hand on the barbed wire bringing him back in. It was dark, I wasn’t really paying attention-- it was stupid.”

Zach has no clue who Dash is, or why Ryan would have been anywhere near barbed wire, but he doesn’t ask, either. “You’ll need stitches,” he says, matter of fact. “When was your last tetanus shot?” Ryan pulls a face, tugging his hand from Zach’s grip. ”What’s the matter, Suter?” he asks. “Afraid of a little needle?”

“Just do it,” Ryan mumbles, and when Zach risks a glance at him halfway through, Ryan’s looking away, eyes screwed shut and jaw clenched tightly. 

“Doing okay?” Zach asks, and Ryan opens one eye just enough to shoot him a glare. Zach huffs a sharp, quiet laugh through his nose, and if Ryan heard it, he’s keeping it to himself. He finishes the last of the stitches and ties it off before wrapping Ryan’s hand in gauze and turning on the water at the small sink that stands in the corner of the only exam room in the office. “I’ll write you a prescription for an antibiotic and a painkiller,” he says as he soaps his hands. “And if your tetanus isn’t up to date, we should really--”

“It’s fine,” Ryan says. “I had one a few years ago. And I don’t need the painkillers, I’ll--”

“Still trying to act like Mr. Tough Guy, huh?” Zach says as he dries his hands on one of the flimsy paper towels stocked in the dispenser. There’s no heat to it, but Zach’s still surprised when Ryan ducks his head and smiles.

Zach remembers, suddenly, the last time he saw Ryan, standing at the end of Zach’s driveway three nights before he left for Baltimore. His fists were clenched at his sides, jaw set and shoulders squared, and the way Ryan’s eyes narrowed when Zach strolled toward him made him laugh out loud. “What the fuck do _you_ want?” he remembers saying, and he can hear Ryan’s scoff ringing in his ears even now, all these years later. “I don’t remember inviting you to my going-away party.” (It was a bluff, and Zach knew by the look in Ryan’s eyes that Ryan knew it-- there was no going-away party, because for that to happen, Zach would’ve had to care enough to say goodbye.) 

“Who’d you tell?” Ryan asked, crowding into Zach’s space. Zach wasn’t stupid, he knew what Ryan meant, but that didn’t mean he was going to make it easy for him. 

“Don’t know what you’re talking about, man. Is there something to tell?” He grinned with all his teeth, realizing too late that Ryan’s fist was about to connect with his jaw. 

“Fuck you,” Ryan spat, and Zach touched his fingers to his mouth. They were wet with blood when he pulled them away. 

“I don’t do much fighting anymore,” Ryan’s saying, a smile still lingering on his lips, and Zach blinks himself from the memory. He takes a moment to study Ryan where he’s sitting on the exam table, the elbow of his injured hand resting on one knee. He’s bigger than Zach remembers, broad in the shoulders, his dark hair still thick as ever. 

Zach clears his throat and fumbles for his prescription pad. He tears off the top piece and folds it in half, holding it out towards Ryan’s good hand. “Fill that,” he says pointedly. “It’ll be throbbing like hell in the morning.”

Ryan pushes off from the the table, his boots hitting the floor with a heavy thud. “What do I owe you?” he asks, but Zach waves him off. 

“Don’t worry about it.”

“No, I mean, I have insurance, I just--”

Zach shakes his head and pinches the bridge of his nose, waving a hand towards the mess of papers on his desk. “Trust me. It’ll be more trouble than it’s worth. Just-- consider it a favor.” 

Zach’s been doing a lot of favors for people this week. It feels strange treating the ailments of people who knew him from-- before, who put up with his attitude or were on the receiving end of his bullshit. They all know he hasn’t set foot back here since he left, not for a birthday or a holiday, not even when his grandmother got sick and they weren’t sure she was going to make it. Not a single one of them had treated him anything less than kind, and even though he knew he didn’t deserve it, he found himself appreciating how easily they welcomed him back.

Ryan nods and makes a move towards the door, but stops when his hand reaches the doorknob. He looks over his shoulder and nods once. “Then I owe you one.”

He’s gone before Zach can argue, and he jumps when the cuckoo clock chirps loudly, signalling eleven. He tugs his jacket from its spot on the coat-rack that stands crookedly next to the door and flips the light switch to off. 

The paperwork can wait until Monday.

**

The sun streaking through his bare windows wakes him up earlier than anyone should be out of bed on a Saturday morning, and he grumbles to himself, burying his face in his pillow in a feeble attempt to block the light. A rooster crows somewhere in the distance, and he rolls onto his back to stare at the ceiling. The bitterness he’d felt the first morning he woke up in this bed has faded in its intensity, but it’s still there, a nagging voice on the edge of his mind, mocking him for his decision to move back here in the first place.

He thinks about the conversation he’d had just a month ago, when his father explained that he planned to retire back to Minnesota sooner rather than later, a move Zach knew was coming but didn’t think had anything to do with him. 

Until it did. 

“I want you to come home, Zach. Take over the practice,” his father said, and Zach had laughed, sure it was a joke. 

They’d argued in the quiet way they always did when they were on two very different sides of an issue, and Zach, with only minimal guilt, ended the call with a lie. “I’ll think about it.”

He had no intention of thinking about it, and if his dad knew that, he didn’t let on. 

A week later, a moving truck packed to the gills with Sam’s things rumbled down the street, disappearing around the corner with all his plans for the future. A week after that, he pulled into the dusty driveway of a two-bedroom rambler in a familiar old town and prepared to take over the family business. 

“It’s only for now, Dad,” Zach told his father that first morning, when JP beamed at him from behind his desk when Zach walked through the door of the tiny doctor’s office. “Trial run, remember?” 

It’s been two weeks, and he’s no closer to making a decision than he was the day he arrived.

He swings his feet over the edge of his bed, flexing his toes against the smooth hardwood of the floor, and pads to the kitchen, fumbling through a half-empty box for a coffee mug. He should probably take the time to properly unpack, but that would mean actually admitting to himself that is his life now-- that he’s living back home in a town he never felt he belonged in, in a modest house that’s a far cry from the year-old three-bedroom condo he left behind. 

He stands in front of the sink with his arms stretched in front of him, hands pressed to the lip of the counter, and stares out the window at his front yard. The lawn could use cutting, but he can’t remember the last time he even started a lawn mower, let alone owned one, and his shiny Mercedes sticks out like a sore thumb among the old pick-ups and station wagons parked in the driveways of his neighbors. 

Mr. Johnson from across the way steps out of his front door, bending over to retrieve his morning paper, and he catches Zach’s eye on his slow stretch back up. He gives a small nod, and Zach raises a hand to wave. To Mr. Johnson it’s probably normal, but to Zach, it’s anything but. 

He pushes off from the counter and pours a generous amount of cream into his coffee, sipping it slowly from the quiet of his kitchen table. He’s still not used to it-- the quiet, that is-- and for the first week in his new bed, he couldn’t sleep without turning on the TV. The silence was too loud, and he found himself missing the sound of honking horns and sirens in the distance. 

His house phone rings shrilly, and he jumps, his knuckles bouncing off his mug. Coffee sloshes over the rim and hits his hand, hot, and he swears under his breath, sucking the liquid from his skin. He hasn’t had a landline since -- well, since he was seventeen and still living at home -- but the cell service here is terrible, and his father urged him to set it up in case of emergencies. It’s seven am on a Saturday morning, he thinks, so it better be just that.

“Hello?” he says, cradling the receiver between his ear and his shoulder. 

“Your neighbors are starting to gossip about the height of your grass,” says a deep voice on the other end of the line. “You should maybe do something about that.”

Zach cracks a smile and leans against the wall, folding both arms over his bare chest, the phone still cradled in the dip of his shoulder. “How did you get my number?”

“Your dad gave it to me,” Ryan says, and Zach isn’t surprised. His dad’s up at the crack of dawn every day, meeting his buddies for coffee at the only diner in town. It's one of the things he knows his dad will miss when he packs up in a few days for the move back go Minnesota. “I ran into him at breakfast.”

“You’re meeting the old men for coffee now?” Zach says, and the tease in his own voice is unfamiliar, but somehow not unwelcome. “It’s only been ten years, Suter, we’re not _that_ old yet.”

“Nah, I was helping Sarah open up,” he says. “She was short a server this morning and I don’t like her being in there alone.”

“Oh,” Zach says, a little surprised. “Your wife?”

Ryan’s chuckle is warm and friendly as it drifts through the phone. “Nah. I’m not married. Sarah’s just-- she’s my best friend, I guess.”

“Wait, Sarah Armstrong?” Zach asks, his eyebrows raising. “She’s still around?”

“She married Will Buckley,” Ryan tells him. “He, uh -- he was killed in a wreck a few years back, and Sarah and the kids, well. I’ve been helping her take care of them.”

“Wow,” Zach says, “that’s really sad, man. I’m sorry to hear that.” He means it, but he wouldn’t blame Ryan for not believing it. Zach wasn’t the best of friends with Will in high school-- or with anyone, really-- but Sarah had always been sweet to him, and he feels awful for her and her kids. 

“Anyway,” Ryan says, clearly looking for a subject change. “I thought I’d come over with my mower today and clean up the mess you’ve got going on before Mr. Davis calls a council meeting to have you thrown out of town for unkempt property.”

Zach laughs, and it makes him feel lighter somehow, like the suffocating fog he’s been moving around in for the past two weeks is lifting. 

“Sure,” he agrees, and it’s only after they say their goodbyes that Zach realizes he forgot to check in with Ryan about his hand. It doesn’t matter, he thinks. He can see for himself when Ryan gets there.

**

By midweek, Zach’s caught up on enough paperwork that he’s home before dark. It’s nice to kick back on the couch and flip aimlessly through channels on the TV, even though what he should be doing is unpacking the boxes that are littered throughout the house. There’s an old rerun of The Brady Bunch on, and he turns the volume down low enough that it’s just a quiet hum in the background and closes his eyes. 

His mind drifts to Sam, to the last time he saw her, hair swept up in a messy bun on top of her head, her eyes puffy from crying. She had her arms wrapped around herself in one of his hoodies, the one he’d bought in a souvenir shop when they’d gone to Chicago the year before, and it was so cold on the pier that their teeth were chattering. 

“I’m sorry,” she said, when the last of the boxes filled with her things was carried from the condo. “I never wanted it to end up this way.”

He could barely look at her. All he could think about was the diamond ring tucked into the pocket of a suit coat that hung in their-- his-- closet, and how all it was now was a meaningless rock. 

He opens his eyes when he hears a knock at the door, and he frowns, checking the time. He wasn’t expecting anyone, but it would be just like one of his neighbors to show up unannounced with leftovers or an offer to help him tidy his house.

He’s more than a little surprised when he opens the door to find Ryan standing there, a toolbox in one hand and a six-pack in the other. The smile on his face is bordering on shy, and whatever words Zach should be saying are caught in his throat as he stares.

“Uh. Hi,” Ryan says, and whatever weird moment they were having is blessedly broken. “I, uh. I noticed the other day that a couple of the hinges on your kitchen cabinets are loose.”

Zach blinks, his hand still on the doorknob. Ryan had come in after mowing the lawn and leaned against Zach’s kitchen counter, his damp shirt clinging to his biceps and sweat beading at his temples as he gulped the glass of Ice water Zach offered. His eyes had wandered the kitchen, lingering on the unpacked boxes, until Zach had asked him about his hand to avoid any questions Ryan might have wanted to ask. 

“I thought I could fix them?” Ryan shifts his weight from one foot to the other, and Zach shrugs one shoulder.

“You don’t have to do that, man,” he says, but he’s stepping back anyway, waving a hand to invite Ryan in.

Ryan offers him a soft smile as he passes, his eyes crinkling at the corners, and Zach can’t help but smile right back. It’s weird, he thinks, letting Ryan into his house, smiling at him like there was never any bad blood between them. 

He and Ryan never got along, not really. Not since the day the Parise family moved to town.

Zach was thirteen, and he made it clear to anyone who would listen that he wasn’t pleased with his father’s decision to move them to the Middle of Nowhere, Wisconsin. Zach had _friends_ in Minneapolis, he had a pool in his backyard and he played hockey and he was _good_ , and now all of that was gone. His new school didn’t even _have_ a hockey team, so he was stuck with baseball, which bored him to tears. Ryan was on the team, too, and he was bigger than Zach, taller and with a stronger arm. He had friends from school, friends from church, and friends from the team, and he was always, always smiling.

Zach hated him from the start. 

They spoke as little as they had to, sitting on opposite sides of the bench all throughout junior high and high school. They were paired as lab partners in senior chem lab, and they almost blew up the entire school when they started shoving each other during an argument over who had the right answer to number four. 

And now Ryan is in his kitchen, fixing his cabinets like Zach had never caught him making out with Shea Weber in the back of Shea’s pickup. 

“There,” Ryan announces, getting to his feet and rolling his shoulders, his hands pressed into the small of his back like it’s aching. “All set.”

Zach’s kind of amazed, if he’s being honest. Ryan’s handy, and while Zach does know how to mow the lawn, thank you very much, he’s not exactly Mr. Fixit himself. Ryan leans back against the counter and crosses his arms over his chest, and Zach notices that his hand isn’t bandaged anymore. He nods in Ryan’s direction and waves a hand. 

“How’s it look?” he asks, and Ryan shrugs one shoulder, holding his hand palm-up in front of him. Zach crosses the short distance between them and slips his own hand under Ryan’s, his fingers circling Ryan’s wrist. The stitches look good, the skin pulled taut, and there’s only a little redness, but Ryan’s hand is filthy, and Zach fights the urge to scold him. He must be showing all his cards, because Ryan laughs lightly.

“I can’t keep them clean all the time, doc,” he says, a slight, teasing lilt in his voice. “I spent half the day in the fields and the other half refinishing the hardwood at the bakery in town.”

“Lucky for you, I own stock in hand soap,” Zach says with a smile, nodding at the sink behind Ryan. “Help yourself.”

Ryan rolls his eyes, but soaps his hands up before rinsing them under the stream of water that’s spurting from the faucet. He frowns, and Zach’s eyes catch on the worry-lines between his brows and wonders, fleetingly, if Ryan’s been happy all these years. “Has it always done that?” Ryan asks, and Zach raises one eyebrow in question.

“Done what?”

The plumbing under the sink clunks, and another spurt of water bursts from the tap. Ryan laughs and dries his hands on his jeans. “That.”

“Oh,” Zach says, and shrugs his shoulders. “Maybe? I’ve only been here a few weeks, I guess I haven’t used it that much.”

“Yeah,” Ryan comments, his eyes falling on the unopened box of dishes near Zach’s feet. “I can see that you haven’t really gotten settled in yet.”

“I eat out a lot,” Zach snaps, suddenly defensive, and Ryan gives him a half-smile, holding his hands up in mock surrender. 

“I’ll fix the plumbing next time,” he says, crouching down to the floor to collect his tools. 

Zach glances at the untouched six-pack on the counter, then back at Ryan, whose face is unreadable. 

“Next time,” he repeats, and before Zach can object, the door is closing and Ryan’s gone.

**

There is a next time, and a time after that, and a time after that. Ryan fixes the plumbing, and then a creaky floorboard that hadn’t bothered Zach until Ryan pointed it out, and then the clog in his gutters that was causing water to spill over the awning of his porch like a waterfall. Before Zach knows it, he’s been back in town for two months, and having Ryan over is just -- normal. 

Sometimes Ryan shows up unannounced (he’d scared the shit out of Zach one night last week, when Zach fell asleep on the couch and he came in through the unlocked door and stood over him until he woke up, laughing with his head thrown back when Zach threw a pillow at him) and sometimes they make plans. Zach cooks dinner while Ryan works, and they sit across from one another at Zach’s two-person table, nursing their beers and catching up on the ten years they’ve missed. 

Zach learns that Ryan took over the family farm when his dad passed away unexpectedly a couple years back, and on top of that, he serves as the go-to handyman for everyone in town. Zach doesn’t tell Ryan everything, not right away. Ryan knows he’s a doctor, knows he’d lived in New York before he came back here, but not much beyond that. 

It changes one night after too many beers, when Zach’s hit with a sudden sadness that makes his chest ache with regret. 

“My girlfriend cheated on me,” he says around the mouth of his beer bottle, leaned back on one elbow on the steps of the front porch. “I was a week from proposing, and I walked in on her screwing some guy in our bed.”

Ryan makes a soft sound and knocks their shoulders together gently. His longs legs are stretched out next to Zach’s, crossed at the ankles, the soles of his work boots caked in mud. “I’m sorry, man. That’s rough.”

In the time he’s been back, Zach’s fallen into an easy camaraderie with the community that no one, himself especially, expected. Maybe it’s because the town hasn’t really changed, or maybe it’s because he _has_. Whatever the reason, he finds himself feeling more at home each day, and it’s crazy to think that a big part of that has to do with the guy sitting next to him in the dim artificial light of the lamp post in Zach’s yard. 

“I thought I had it all, y’know?” Zach says quietly, staring out into the darkness. It’s quiet around them, just the soft chirp of the midnight crickets hiding out in the bushes, and he blows out a breath, screwing his eyes shut tight before opening them again. “Great job, great place, great girl.” He takes a pull from his beer and swallows, letting the neck dangle between two fingers. “I was so wrong.”

“Hey, no,” Ryan says, nudging Zach again. “I mean, the girl, yeah, that’s messed up, but the rest of it-- the job, that stuff-- you worked hard for that, man. You should be proud of yourself.”

Zach fights the smile that’s tugging at the corners of his mouth and shakes his head, glancing at Ryan out of the corner of his eye. “I wasn’t going to tell anyone,” he says suddenly, and Ryan’s sitting close enough that Zach feels him go tense. “I was never gonna tell anyone, Ryan, I wasn’t-- I’m _not_ like that.”

Ryan finishes the last few swigs of his beer and sets the bottle on the edge of the steps with a quiet clank. He stands up, his back to Zach, and for a long moment, Zach thinks he’s fucked everything up. Ryan’s shoulders are squared, and he shoves his hands in his pockets. Zach watches the muscles in his back rise and fall as he takes in a deep breath and lets it out. 

“I’m sorry I decked you,” he finally says, and even though he’s speaking quietly, his voice seems to echo in the quiet of the night. “I was so-- no one knew, man, and I liked it that way, y’know? I had no idea how people would react. My dad especially.”

“Did he ever know?” Zach asks quietly, because it feels important. Ryan looks over his shoulder, and when their eyes meet, Ryan’s go soft. 

“Yeah,” he says, and looks back out over the yard. “Yeah, he knew. He was good with it. I mean, he’d probably have preferred I married a nice girl and settled down and had a whole bunch of kids, but he never said that. He just wanted me to be happy.”

Zach swallows, his heartbeat thrumming in his ears. “And are you?”

Ryan’s not facing him, so Zach can’t gauge his reaction. “Sure, man. What’s not to be happy about?” It’s the least convincing thing Ryan’s ever said to him, but Zach doesn’t push it. “I should go,” Ryan says, and digs his keys from his pocket. “Thanks for the beers, man. I’ll see ya.”

“Ryan,” Zach calls before Ryan can make it to his truck. Ryan stops, turns towards him, and tilts his head. “We should hang out. In public.” 

Ryan breaks into an easy grin, a low chuckle rumbling from his chest. “Almost sounds like you’re asking me on a date, Parise,” he teases, and Zach blinks and sits up a little straighter. Something clicks into place in his head.

“What if I am?” he asks, his chin jutting out. 

Ryan stares at Zach for the count of three and then shrugs one shoulder. “Then I guess I’m saying yes.”

**

Three days later, Zach’s sitting on an old wooden bench outside the Cotton Patch. It’s a little before 7, and the sun hangs lazily in the sky, the late-August heat lingering into the evening. His knee is bouncing anxiously, and he checks his watch for the third time in five minutes. 

“What’s wrong?” comes Ryan’s voice from a few feet away, and Zach turns his head, shielding his eyes from the sunlight. “Afraid I wasn’t going to show?” 

Zach allows himself a quick moment to take Ryan in. He’s dressed in a dark navy polo and khaki shorts, his forearms a deep tan from working in the fields and his calves pale white from being hidden under Ryan’s work pants all summer. He’s wearing sandals, and Zach is pretty sure he has gel in his hair.

“I almost didn’t recognize you without your boots on,” he teases, standing to greet Ryan with an awkward, one-armed hug. 

“I can go home and change if you’d like,” Ryan says, the corner of his mouth curved upward, and Zach shakes his head.

“Nah,” he says. “You look good.” Ryan ducks his head, and Zach can’t help but notice the way the tips of his ears go pink. It makes his stomach swoop in a way he hasn’t felt in a while, and he nudges Ryan in the side with his elbow. “C’mon, I’m starving.”

Before they can even get through the door, Zach hears someone calling Ryan’s name. They both stop and turn over their shoulders in time to see Mr. Hardison ambling down the sidewalk towards them, waving one hand wildly in the air.

“Ah, Ryan, I’m glad I caught you,” he says, patting Ryan’s shoulder. “Is this a bad time?”

“Uh,” Ryan starts, throwing Zach a glance, but Zach shakes his head. 

“Not at all, Mr. Hardison. What can we do for you?”

“You helped me _plenty_ yesterday, Zachary,” he grumbles, and Zach has to bite his lip to keep from laughing. Going to the doctor wasn’t always the most pleasant experience, and Mr. Hardison had not enjoyed his appointment the day before. “Ryan, there’s a shingle loose on my roof,” he continues. “It’s been flapping in the wind, driving me crazy at night, I tell ya, and I know there’s a storm coming. I need you to fix it, can you do that? I can’t get up on that ladder with these old knees of mine.”

Zach looks up at the cloudless sky and then at Ryan, who looks helpless in the face of someone asking him to bring out his tools. “Uh,” he repeats, rubbing the back of his neck. “Zach and I were just about to--”

“Of course he’ll help, Mr. Hardison,” Zach interrupts, laying a reassuring hand on Mr. Hardison’s shoulder. “We just need to swing by his place to grab his tools, and we’ll be right over.”

Mr. Hardison narrows his eyes suspiciously and looks between the two of them, staring first at Zach and then at Ryan, wary. “Didn’t you two boys used to hate one another?”

Ryan barks out a laugh, and Zach grins at him, shrugging one shoulder. “We were just kids,” he says, meeting Ryan’s eyes. “We didn’t know any better.” He holds Ryan’s gaze for longer than is probably acceptable given the fact that Mr. Hardison is staring them down, and it’s Ryan that finally looks away, clearing his throat quietly. 

“We’ll be right over, sir,” Ryan says, and to Zach, when Mr. Hardison is out of earshot, “I’m sorry, man. I’ll make it up to you.”

“What are you talking about?” Zach says. “I’ve always wanted to watch someone fix a roof.”

**

He does more than just watch, as it turns out. For the better part of an hour, he stands at the foot of a wobbly wooden ladder, holding it steady while Ryan works the loose shingle free and replaces it with a new one. Mr. Hardison supervises, of course, yelling questions up to Ryan every few minutes.

“Did you make sure it’s in there tight? Maybe you should replace the ones around it too, what do you think? It’s not going to leak, is it?”

Ryan answers every question with careful patience, and Zach finds himself forgetting what it was he disliked about Ryan all those years ago. He tightens his grip on the ladder while Ryan climbs down, the back of his neck going hot when he realizes he’s been watching the shift of Ryan’s ass with each step down he takes. 

Ryan rubs his hands together to get the dust off and glances up to the roof, squinting. “I think you should be good to go, sir,” he says, waving his hand when Mr. Hardison pulls his wallet from his pocket. “This one’s on me. I hope you’re able to get some sleep tonight.”

“You’re a good boy, Ryan,” he says, giving Ryan a toothy grin. “Don’t be a stranger around here. The missus likes to say hello.”

“Are you still hungry?” Ryan asks as they climb into his pickup. He starts the engine and drapes an arm over the back of Zach’s seat as he looks over his shoulder to back out of the driveway. His fingers brush Zach’s neck when he turns to face forward again, and Zach’s honestly not sure if it was an accident or not. Either way, his skin in tingling where Ryan touched, and he has to dig his fingers into his own thighs to calm a sudden frenzy of nerves. 

“Yeah,” Zach replies, glancing at the digital clock on Ryan’s dash. It’s early enough that they could still grab beer and appetizers at the Coachlight, but the supper club closed half an hour ago. “Coachlight?” he asks, and Ryan shrugs. There’s a smudge of dirt on his shorts, and his hair is damp with sweat near his collar, curling around his temples.

“We could go back to my place,” he offers. “I can throw something together.”

“That kind of defeats the purpose of tonight, doesn’t it?” Zach asks, and he’s teasing, but Ryan’s jaw clenches anyway. 

“What was the purpose of tonight, exactly?” 

“I don’t know,” Zach says simply. “I don’t know, Ryan, I thought --” he stops and lets out a breath, turning his head to look out the window, away from Ryan. “It’s different, right?”

“What’s different?” Ryan asks. 

“This,” he says, waving a hand between them. “Is it weird that we’re just --"

“It’s been ten years, man,” Ryan says, as if that explains everything. As if it explains this shift in the atmosphere that happens whenever they’re together, as if it explains why instead of wanting to punch Ryan in the mouth, he wants to digs his fingers into Ryan’s hips and pull him close. “People change.”

The drive is silent after that, and it takes Zach a minute to realize Ryan’s driving back towards town. “Your place is back the other way,” he says, and Ryan keeps his eyes on the road when he smiles.

“That kind of defeats the purpose of tonight, doesn’t it?”

Zach bites the inside of his cheek and shoves at Ryan’s shoulder, letting his hand trail down to Ryan’s bicep before squeezing gently and putting his hand back in his own lap. 

Ryan kisses him on the cheek under the porchlight when he drops him off later, after hours of laughing and talking and letting Ryan beat him at darts. He leans back against the front door once it’s closed, his palms flat against it until his heart rate returns to normal.

Before getting into bed, he unpacks the boxes in the kitchen. 

**  
By the end of September, the leaves on the trees are turning a brilliant orange, and the evening breeze has that familiar chill that’s telling of the season to come. Zach flips his desk calendar to October 1st and sits back in his chair, his eyes catching on his diploma hanging on the wall. 

In three short months, he’s gone from a high-profile clinic in New York City to a small-town doctor’s office where he sees maybe four patients a day. As resistant as he was to the change, he has to admit that being back in Green Valley hasn’t been as bad as he’d imagined.

A lot of that has to do with the last person he ever thought would make any kind of positive impact on his life. He thinks about the night before, sitting next to Ryan on the couch, a blanket slung over both their laps and Ryan’s arm draped over the back of the cushions, his fingers idly grazing over Zach’s hairline. Zach was shoveling a handful of popcorn into his mouth when out of the corner of his eye, he caught Ryan staring.

“What?” he mumbled around his mouthful, and Ryan grinned, his eyes crinkling around the corners in that way that Zach found himself becoming so fond of. 

“Nothing,” Ryan said, stroking his knuckles along the shell of Zach’s ear and turning his attention back to the movie. Zach felt warm all over, like he did a lot lately when he was around Ryan. They’d kissed a few times, once on Zach’s front porch and once in the front seat of Ryan’s pickup, with Ryan’s hand laying heavy on his thigh, but it hadn't gone any further than that, and Zach wasn't pushing it. He was happy with the way things were going, even if they'd yet to talk about what exactly this _thing_ was.

They spent a lot of their nights like that, Ryan making dinner and Zach cleaning up afterwards, watching old movies or playing scrabble at the kitchen table. They have plans to do exactly that tonight, actually--Ryan beat Zach badly the last time, and Zach demanded a rematch--and he looks over his appointment book, eager to end his day. 

He only has one appointment left, and when he sees the name, he sits up a little straighter.

_Isabella Buckley_

In a town this small, it can only be Will and Sarah's daughter. "Jenny?" he calls from his office, and Jenny appears in the doorway, smiling warmly. She stuck around even after Zach's father retired, and he was grateful to have her. She knew everything about all their patients and always filled him in before someone new arrived. "My 3:00. Is it Sarah Buckley's daughter?"

Jenny's smile doesn't falter. "Sure is," she says brightly. "She's in for her five-year-old well-check."

It's not that Zach hasn't seen Sarah since he's been back. Of course he has. He's had breakfast at the diner more than a handful of times, and he and Ryan have run into her around town more than once. He just-- doesn't know what Sarah knows, or what Ryan's told her (or, he thinks, if there's anything to tell), and the thought of her coming in here in fifteen minutes with the daughter that Ryan helped raise is a little daunting. 

"Dr. Parise?" Jenny says, and he looks up sharply. "Is everything ok?"

"What? Oh, yeah, yes. Everything's fine, Jenny, thank you."

She disappears back to her desk, leaving Zach to wait, a growing pit of anxiety in his belly. When the bell above the door jingles, Zach sits up straight, straining to hear Sarah's voice as she makes small talk with Jenny. Now or never, he thinks, and pushes back from his desk, smoothing down his tie before making his way to the waiting room.

"Sarah!" he greets her brightly, a smile plastered on his face. "It's good to see you." Isabelle has her knees pulled up to her chest on the chair next to Sarah, leaning into her mother's side and hiding her face. He crouches down in front of her and lowers his voice. "And you must be Isabelle," he says, and she twists towards Sarah. 

It's a little surprising that in his time back here, he hasn't met Sarah's children. Ryan spends a good amount of time with them, but he's never invited Zach along or offered to introduce them. It hasn't bothered Zach, not really--he figured Ryan had a good reason for keeping that part of his life separate from whatever they were doing--but now, with Isabelle in front of him, refusing to even look at him, he feels a pang of regret for not having pushed the issue with Ryan.

"Izzy, it's okay," Sarah says, laying one hand on Isabelle's head gently. "Dr. Zach is a good guy." She raises her eyes then, meets his and raises one eyebrow. "Right, Zach? You'd never hurt anyone, would you?"

The innuendo doesn't go unnoticed, and he shakes his head as he gets to his feet. "Not in a million years," he says. "Isabelle, I have a little bit of a sore throat. Do you think you could use my magnifying glass and tell me if my throat is red?"

It works like a charm, and the rest of the visit goes off without a hitch. By the end of it, Izzy is high-fiving him and asking him when she can come back.

And then Sarah speaks up. "You're seeing Ryan again tonight, huh?" Her arms are folded across her chest, and the look on her face is unreadable. "Been seeing a lot of him."

"You know my Uncle Ryan?" Izzy says, her eyes like saucers as she looks up at him. He feels his face go hot when he clears his throat and nods. 

"I sure do," he says. "He's great, huh?"

"He's the _best_ ," she beams, and Zach looks at Sarah, unable to stop his own smile.

"Dinner and game night," he tells her. "He owes me a scrabble rematch."

Sarah hums and turns her attention to Izzy. "Sweetheart, why don't you go and see what Miss Jenny has in her treasure chest today, okay?"

Izzy skips off, leaving Zach to shift from one foot to the other, his neck damp with nervous sweat as Sarah studies him quietly.

"So," he starts, but she cuts him off.

"Ryan's my best friend," she says. "He's been there for me and my kids when we needed him the most, and he's the most selfless person I've ever met." Zach just nods in agreement, a silent understanding that now is not his time to talk. "When Shea left-- it kind of destroyed him. He never thought he'd meet someone like that again, not when he was living here."

With that, she confirms Zach's suspicions that Ryan's been alone for a long, long time. "Sarah, I'm--"

She puts a hand up, stopping him. "I haven't seen him this happy in years," she says. "And I don't pretend to understand how it could _possibly_ have anything to do with _you_." 

"But it does," he finishes, and after a long moment, she nods.

"But it does."

"He's really great, " Zach says, and means it. "I don't know, Sarah, it just-- he's really great."

"Yeah,” she agrees. “He is. _Don’t_ hurt him.” She points one long finger at him to impress her point before turning on her heel to collect Izzy.

"Bye Dr. Zach!" she calls, waving her little hand. "See you when I'm six!"

He can hear the distant ring of his cellphone from where it's stuffed in his desk drawer, and he lets it go to voicemail.

**

Zach sighs dramatically and lets his head fall back to rest on the couch cushions. “I can’t believe you beat me _again_ ,” he complains, and Ryan’s laugh carries from the kitchen. Zach closes his eyes, and when he opens them again, Ryan’s standing above him, looking down at him with a warm smile, his eyes dancing. 

“Guess that fancy med school education didn’t get you as far as you thought,” he teases, laughing at the face Zach makes. Zach blinks a few times when Ryan leans in and presses a kiss to his forehead, his lips lingering on Zach’s skin. It’s an intimate move, and Zach’s heart is racing when Ryan sinks into the couch next him, one long leg pressed against the length of his own. 

“I saw Sarah today,” Zach says before he can stop himself, and Ryan raises an eyebrow to him, clearly amused. 

“That so?” he asks, taking a swig from his beer bottle. “How’d Izzy check out?”

Zach gapes at him. “You _knew_? You could have _warned_ me.”

Ryan laughs again, and Zach finds himself feeling mildly irritated that Ryan thinks this is funny. “Warned you about what? Izzy’s attitude?”

“No, Izzy was fine, but Sarah --”

Ryan’s face falls, and he leans forward with his elbows on his knees, sliding his bottle onto the coffee table. “Shit. I should’ve known.” He turns, looks at Zach over his shoulder. “How bad was it?”

Zach shakes his head quickly, sitting up so they’re shoulder to shoulder. “It wasn’t. She just--” he frowns, then shakes his head, huffing out a laugh. “I think she was asking about my intentions.”

Ryan blinks at him, then covers his face with both his hands like he’s trying to hide a smile. “Oh my god,” he mumbles, and Zach knocks their knees together. He takes a deep breath and curls his fingers around Ryan’s bicep before sliding his hand down the length of Ryan’s arm, the soft flannel of Ryan’s shirt warm under his palm. His fingers circle Ryan’s wrist and he tugs gently, pulling Ryan’s hands away from his face. 

“I told her I think you’re great,” he says, and Ryan hangs his head, turning his face just enough that he can meet Zach’s eyes. 

“Is there a ‘but’ coming?” he asks, and Zach shifts closer, swallowing his nerves enough to wind an arm around Ryan’s waist, his hand resting lightly on Ryan’s hip. 

“No buts,” he says. Ryan’s looking him full in the face now, and they’re sitting close enough that Zach can almost feel Ryan’s breath on his neck. “I think you’re great, and I wanna do this.” He can’t remember the last time he was this nervous. Ryan’s gaze is moving from his eyes to his mouth and back again, and Zach licks his lips. “I wanna be with you.”

He closes his eyes when Ryan cups his face in one hand, turns into the touch when Ryan strokes his thumb over his cheek. If anyone had asked him a year ago if he remembered Ryan Suter, or if he could ever see them being friends, he’d have laughed in their face. He can’t even remember a single time he even _thought_ about Ryan in the last ten years.

And then Ryan’s kissing him, and Ryan’s hands are in his hair, and Ryan’s easing him back onto the couch, his fingers dipping into the waistband of Zach’s pants, teasing. Ryan mouths along his jaw, scrapes his teeth over Zach’s earlobe, and pops the button on Zach’s pants. 

“Can I?” he asks, his voice deep and muffled against Zach’s ear. He palms Zach through the denim and Zach rolls his hips, chasing the pressure. Ryan grins against his neck, his lips brushing lightly over Zach’s pulsepoint. 

“Yeah,” Zach manages, expecting Ryan to ease one big hand into his pants and jerk him off. Instead, Ryan rucks his shirt up and slides down his body, his lips hot on Zach’s belly, his tongue drawing lazy circles around Zach’s navel as he eases his zipper down. 

He settles between Zach’s legs, and their eyes meet briefly before Zach’s roll back in his head. 

**

The sun streaking through his (still) bare windows wakes him up earlier than anyone should be out of bed on a Saturday morning, but this morning is different. This morning, the first thing he sees when he opens his eyes is the long, smooth line of Ryan’s bare back, the muscles in his shoulders bunched where he has his arms tucked under his head. The sheets are pooled around his waist, and Zach resists the urge to tug them down and stare at the full curve of Ryan’s ass. 

He’s naked beneath the blankets, and he stretches as quietly as he can before slipping out of bed and pulling on a pair of boxers that he’s pretty sure are clean. He stops in the doorway and looks over his shoulder, unable to stop the smile that forms on his face when Ryan snores lightly. 

He puts on a pot of coffee and sits down at the kitchen table with his phone, finally finding time to listen to the message left from a New York number the day before. He listens intently, and when he hangs up, his mind is racing. 

Going back to New York was always on the table. He hadn’t promised his father anything, only that he’d give this a try, and in reality, he hasn’t made a final decision either way. He’s enjoyed his time here, there’s no denying that, and now there’s Ryan-- but now, it seems, New York is beckoning him back.

He jumps when Ryan presses in behind him, his lips warm on Zach’s bare shoulder. “Good morning,” he mumbles, and kisses the top of Zach’s head. “You want me to make breakfast?” 

“No,” Zach says, and Ryan looks at him, tilting his head in question when Zach pushes back from the table. “Let’s go back to bed.” 

**

“Hey,” Ryan says, kicking at Zach’s foot under the wobbly table they’re sharing in the corner of the Coachlight. Zach’s attention is on the game playing on the TV behind Ryan’s head, and Ryan kicks him again. “What’s up with you?”

“Huh?” Zach asks, meeting Ryan’s eyes across the table. “What do you mean?”

Since the weekend before, when they spent most of Saturday in bed and all of Sunday morning tangled up on Zach’s couch, they’ve spent some amount of time together every day, but Zach knows he’s been distracted. Every time he listens to the voicemail saved on his phone, he’s reminded of everything he gave up back in New York.

And every time he looks at Ryan, he’s reminded of everything he gained, however unexpectedly, by coming back to Green Valley. 

“I don’t know what to do,” he told his mother on the phone the night before, and she’d sighed quietly. “I never thought I’d be here this long. I know I told Dad --”

“You told your father you’d try,” she said. “And have you?”

“Yeah,” he said. “But it’s more than that. I feel -- it feels --”

“Like home?” she said , and he could hear her smile in the lilt of her voice. 

“It’s a really great offer,” Zach said, ignoring the question. “A great opportunity. A lot of money.”

“Zachary,” she said. “I can’t tell you what to do. Your father can’t tell you what to do. We only ever wanted you to be happy. It’s up to you to decide where that happiness lies.”

Ryan’s watching him intently, leaning forward on his elbows. His brow is furrowed just the slightest bit, and Zach feels a pang of guilt for keeping Ryan in the dark. 

“You’ve been quiet tonight,” he says, and Zach drops his eyes. “You’ve been quiet all week, actually. Everything okay?”

Zach looks up again and forces a smile that he hopes doesn’t look as fake as it feels. “Yeah, I’m good. Just been a long week,” he lies, and slides his hand over the table to cover Ryan’s, squeezing lightly. “I’m fine.”

Ryan studies him for a moment longer but lets it go, turning his hand palm up and lacing their finger together. “Okay,” he says simply, and when he smiles, Zach feels guilty all over again. He looks around to flag the waitress down for their tab, but before he can, he spots his mother’s friend Karen making her way over to their table. 

“Good evening, boys,” she says, with a warm smile. Zach notices the way her gaze lingers on their joined hands, but if she’s surprised, she doesn’t let on. “So nice to see you out and about.”

Ryan smiles, nodding at her in greeting. “How’s the fridge working?” he asks. “Still staying cool?”

“Yes, thanks to you,” she says. “Don’t you ever think about skipping town, Ryan Suter, we’d be lost without you.” She turns her attention to Zach, and when her face falls just enough that it’s noticeable, his stomach turns. “And I heard you’re thinking of leaving us,” he says, patting his forearm. 

Ryan’s head doesn’t move from where it’s turned towards Karen, but his eyes do, and he’s staring at Zach so hard Zach’s face goes hot. “Who’s spreading that rumor?” he says, trying for lighthearted but failing miserably. Ryan’s still staring at him.

“Your mother said --” she trails off. Something about the way Zach’s looking at her must set off warning bells, because she puts a hand to her mouth and crosses one arm over torso. “I’m sorry, I must have heard wrong. You two have a lovely evening, you hear?” She hurries away, and Zach watches her go, watches the bus boy clear the table next to them, watches a young couple slide into a pair of stools at the bar. Anything to keep from having to look at Ryan. 

When he does, though, Ryan’s looking away, waving down their waitress for the bill. He doesn’t look at Zach while he’s pulling his wallet out, and he doesn’t look at him while they walk out side-by-side. Ryan drives to Zach’s in silence, and the tension is stifling. When Ryan pulls into the driveway, he kills the engine and blows out a breath.

He’s still not looking at Zach.

“Ryan--” he starts, but Ryan shakes his head quickly. 

“Were you gonna tell me?” he asks, and his voice is dangerously low. He sounds angry. He sounds hurt, and defeated, and Zach never wanted this to happen. 

“I should have,” he says, which he knows isn’t the answer Ryan is looking for, but it’s what he has right now. “I should have told you as soon as I got the call.” 

“And when was that, Zach? Before or after we slept together?”

“Before,” Zach admits, and when Ryan frowns, Zach holds up a hand. “No, I mean-- they called me before, but I didn’t listen to the message until that morning. After.” 

Ryan’s shoulders slump, and his head falls back against his set, eyes turned upward. “When you were sitting at the table,” he says, and Zach nods, guilty all over again. “So you got a call to take a job back in New York, and you dragged me back to bed to what, then? Get your fill before you packed up and moved on?”

Zach flinches, fighting the urge to turn away. “No,” he says. “No, I just-- I didn’t want to think about it.” It comes out badly, he knows that, and Ryan finally turns to look at him, his jaw clenched in anger. 

“That’s great, Zach. I hope it was worth it.”

It sounds so final that Zach reaches out and wraps his hand around Ryan’s, holding tight. “I haven’t made a decision either way,” he says, and Ryan’s bitter laugh is less than reassuring. “Ryan, come on,” Zach pleads. “You knew there was a possibility this wasn’t permanent.”

“No,” Ryan says, snatching his hand from Zach’s grip. “I really, really didn’t.”

“It was just a trial run,” Zach says softly. “My dad knew that, I told him before I even got here. I was just going to test the waters, see how it felt.” 

“No, I get it,” Ryan says. “This just a pit stop on the way to your real life back in New York.”

“No, that’s not--”

“I should have known,” Ryan goes on. “You’ve never cared about anyone but yourself.”

Zach scoffs, his hands clenching tightly in his lap. “That’s not fair,” he says. “And you know it.”

“Isn’t it?” Ryan snaps. “Do you know that the people in this town care about you? Do you even _get_ that they were glad to have you back, even though you haven’t been back here one time since you left ten years ago?”

Zach bites his lip and looks away. He has to agree that they welcomed him back with open arms. They’re been a few teasing remarks about his long absence, but nothing cruel or meanspirited. 

“And now you’re just going to take off again, after they’ve gotten used to having you back. After they’ve put their trust in you, their _faith_ in you to take care of them. To take care of their _kids_.” 

“I’m not the only doctor in town,” Zach says, his voice bearing a defensive edge. 

“To them, you are. To them, you’re family.”

Zach swallows the lump in his throat and looks at Ryan, daring him to meet his eyes. “And you? What am I to you? Just some guy you keep hidden away, don’t introduce to the people who are most important to you?”

“That’s not fair.”

“Isn’t it?” Zach mocks, and Ryan glares at him. “We’d been-- dating, or whatever the fuck it is. Was. Whatever-- for a month and I had to meet Izzy at her _checkup_. So don’t talk to me about trust, Ryan, because obviously you didn’t even trust me enough to let me into that part of your life.”

“I guess I made the right call then, didn’t I?”

Zach’s jaw drops. He feels like someone punched him in the gut. Everything feels like it’s unraveling around him, and the look on Ryan’s face is too much for him to deal with right now. He gets out of the truck without another word, and Ryan pulls away before he even gets to the front door. He trips over a box of unpacked bedsheets on the way to his room and curses under his breath before throwing himself onto his bed and burying his face in a pillow. 

It smells like Ryan.

Zach has a really hard time falling asleep after that.

**

He runs into Ryan at the diner the next morning, because of course he does. Ryan’s hunched over a cup of coffee at the counter, Sarah standing in front of him with arms folded over her chest. She looks up when Zach walks in, and her eyes narrow. Ryan looks over his shoulder, then back at Sarah, mumbling something Zach can’t make out. She hesitates, but eventually moves to the other end of the counter, allowing Zach to slide into the stool next to Ryan’s. “Hey,” he says quietly, and Ryan sips his coffee. Zach’s not sure what to say, is the thing. He’s never been one to offer some huge apology, because usually, he refuses to admit he was wrong. But this is different, and he knows it. He just wishes he could find the right words to say. 

“My pillow smelled like you, and I couldn’t sleep because I missed having you next to me,” he wants to say. “You’re the real reason I don’t know if I can leave Green Valley,” he wants to say.

He says none of it. Instead, it’s Ryan who speaks.

“This is always gonna be home for me,” he says, his eyes on the “Home Sweet Home” cross-stitch hanging on the wall behind the register. “I’ve never wanted to be anywhere but here, even though it meant I’d probably never meet anyone to share my life with.” Zach wants to put his hand on the back of Ryan’s neck and stroke his fingers through his hair, wants to tell him he doesn’t have to be alone. That he’s _not_ alone. “And when you rolled back into town, I never in a million years thought we’d end up-- well, you know.” His cheeks are pink, and Zach’s heart is pounding in his ears. When he turns his head and their eyes meet, Zach’s stomach swoops. “And then I fell for you.”

Zach swallows hard, a million thought swarming in his head, but all the words get stuck in his throat. 

“My life isn’t complicated, Zach,” he says, and looks away again. “I’m a simple guy, and I like simple things. I’m not New York City, and I never will be.” He pushes his coffee cup away and stands, and Zach turns on his stool, facing him. “I can’t make your decision for you. But then again, you never even asked me to.” 

He’s out the door before Zach can come up with the right words to tell Ryan that he doesn’t _want_ New York City.

He has a feeling it might be too late.

**

Three days later, he hasn’t seen Ryan again. He hasn’t heard from him, either, and he has three more messages about the job in New York on his voicemail. He knows he should at least call Craig back and tell him he’s thinking about it, but he’s afraid if he makes the call, Craig will be all too convincing.

He stretches out along the length of the couch and folds his hands over his chest, his feet crossed at the ankles. He thinks about the last time Ryan was here, sitting on the end of the couch with Zach’s feet in his lap, this thumb rubbing soft circles over the thin skin near Zach’s ankle. He’d looked at Zach and smiled before saying, “This is nice,” and squeezing Zach’s calf. 

And it _was_. It _is_ , Zach thinks, it’s nice to have Ryan in his life, it’s nice to look forward to seeing someone when he gets home from work, it’s nice to have someone curl up beside him in bed and whisper “good-night” in his ear. So what if it was never supposed to be Ryan Suter that made him feel any of those things?

Ryan makes him feel like he’s home in the last place that he ever thought to look.

He drifts off with regret swirling in his gut and Ryan’s face behind his eyelids.

Some time later, he wakes with a start, his heart pounding. He’s sure he heard a noise, the creak of a floorboard or something, but it must have been a dream, he thinks. The house is completely silent but for his breathing.

He jumps when he hears a loud pounding on the door and sits up quickly, turning his head towards the entryway. His porch light is off, he can’t even judge the shape of the shadow outside, but he gets to his feet anyway, walking to the door on tiptoe to squint through the frosted glass of its diamond-shaped window. He breathes out in relief when he sees Ryan standing there, rubbing his hands together against the chill of the air, and then his heart starts racing for a whole different reason. 

He unlocks the door and pulls it open quickly, shivering against the burst of cold that blows in. “Hi,” Ryan says, a visible puff of breath ghosting from his mouth. 

“Come in, it’s freezing out there,” Zach says, taking a step back. Ryan brings the cold in with him. It clings to Zach where he brushes against him, and the smell of the coming winter sticks to his coat like cologne. “What are you doing here?”

“Don’t take the job,” he blurts, and Zach wonders if the cold is the only reason Ryan’s cheeks are red. “I want-- jesus, Zach, I want you to stay.” Zach swallows when Ryan crowds in close, his cold hands coming to rest on Zach’s hips. “Please stay.”

Zach can’t stop the burst of laughter that bubbles from his throat. He’s smiling so hard his face hurts, and it feel really, really good. “But I already planned a going-away party ,” he teases, leaning into Ryan and pressing their foreheads together. 

Ryan grins and brushes their noses together. “Cancel it then,” he says, and whispers, “I wouldn’t have been invited anyway.” 

Zach laughs again, and it echoes throughout the house until Ryan leans in to kiss him quiet. “C’mon,” Zach says, breathless, when they finally break apart. “You can help me unpack the rest of my boxes.”

When Ryan kisses him again, it feels like the start of something big. “Welcome home,” he says against Zach’s mouth, and yeah, Zach thinks. Sounds about right.


End file.
